Most hotel and airline programs are happy to sell you points or miles. In general, this poor value and I would not recommend it. There are a few programs it can make sense to do it though. But I still would recommend it only when you have a specific use in mind. This can save you a lot of money when used correctly and you don’t have enough points to make a redemption. Below I will outline an example.
Last year I was traveling to State College, PA for the Penn State vs. Ohio State college football rivalry game. As this is a small college town with limited hotel options and the biggest game of the year, hotels were incredibly expensive. Even several months in advance, many hotels were completely sold out. Two of the hotels available were the Hampton Inn and the Graduate by Hilton. These hotels generally go for about $100-200 per night on a non game day weekend. As you can see below, they were each listed for over $1,400 per night!
We were not looking to pay those prices for a fairly basic hotel room. But as you can see, both were available to book with points.
Hilton Honors points are regularly sold for $0.01 each (1 cent per point). So in the examples above, you could buy the 60,000 points for the Hampton Inn for $600 per night or the 70,000 points for the Graduate for $700 per night.
But Hilton routinely runs sales were they will give you a 100% bonus on your points. This makes the cost come down to $0.005 each (0.5 cents per point). This sale seems to be almost as often as when there is no sale.
So I purchased 140,000 points for $700 and booked the Graduate by Hilton for two nights. Hilton also does not charge any fees when using points or a free night reward certificate, so the total was $700 or $350 per night. Instead of the total cash price of $3,251.65 once taxes were added or $1,626 per night.
I will happily buy points for a two night booking that saved me over $2,500 compared to just booking the cash rate.
Now I do understand that this is still much more than the typical cost of this hotel. And it was not a $350 a night hotel. But during large and bust events like this when rooms are way more expensive than they should be, looking at points options can save you a lot of money, even if you need to purchase the points.
This could also be booked with the signup bonus of a Hilton credit card like the American Express Hilton Aspire Card or the American Express Surpass Card which both have standard signup bonuses of 150,000 points or more.
Thank you!